‘You stand around with a bunch of other journalists and a few celebrities,’ Lisa said. ‘You talk to anyone important, you listen to the presentation.’

‘Tell me about this one you’re going to today.’

A shop called Morocco was opening its first Irish branch. Lisa couldn’t have cared less, it had been open for years in London, but the Irish franchise holder was treating it as a big deal. Tara Palmer Tompkinson was flying over from London for the launch, which was being held in the Royalton-inspired splendour of the Fitzwilliam hotel.

‘Will they have food?’ Trix asked.

‘There’s usually something. Canapés. Champagne.’

In fact, Lisa dearly hoped there would be food because she’d started a new eating plan – instead of the Seven Dwarves diet she’d moved on to the Publicity diet. She could eat and drink what she liked, but only at publicity events. Lisa knew the importance of being thin, but she refused to be a traditional diet slave. Instead she incorporated unusual limitations and rewards into her relationship with food, always keeping the challenge fresh and interesting.

‘Champagne!’ Excitement made Trix Don-Corleone-hoarse.

‘That’s if they’re not a low-rent outfit, and if they are they don’t get a plug in the mag. Then you get your goody bag and leave.’

‘A goody bag!’ Trix lit up at the mention of something free. Something that she didn’t have to go to the trouble of stealing. ‘What kind of goody bag?’

‘Depends.’ Lisa pouted jadedly. ‘With a cosmetic company you usually get a selection of the new season’s make-up.’

Trix squeaked with delight.

‘With a shop like this, perhaps a bag –’

‘A bag!’ She hadn’t had a free bag in years, not since they’d started electronically tagging them.

‘Or a top.’

‘Oh my God!’ Trix jigged in excitement. ‘You’re so lucky!’

After a long, thoughtful pause, Trix suggested over-innocently, ‘You know, you should really take Ashling along with you.’ The pecking order was such that there was no chance Trix would ever be allowed to go until Ashling was. ‘She’s your deputy editor. She should know what the drill is if you ever get sick.’

‘But…’ Mercedes’ smooth olive face was anxious at the suggestion of someone else muscling in on such sacred ground. There were only so many free lipsticks to go round.

Mercedes’ palpable alarm coupled with the residue of guilt around Ashling made Lisa’s decision easy. ‘Good idea, Trix. OK, Ashling, you can ride shotgun with me this afternoon. That is,’ she added disingenuously, ‘if you’d like to come.’

Ashling had always been bad at holding a grudge. Especially when there was free stuff involved. ‘Would I like to come?’ She disappointed herself by exclaiming, ‘I’d love to come.’

*

Lisa had lunch at the Clarence with a bestselling author whom she was trying to persuade to write a regular column. It was a success. Not only did the woman agree to do the column for a knock-down fee in exchange for regular plugs for her books, but Lisa escaped the lunch almost unscathed. Despite swirling her food energetically around her plate, all she ate was half a cherry tomato and a forkful of corn-fed chicken.

She returned to work triumphant and was trawling through her mail when Ashling showed up beside her desk, with her bag and jacket.

‘Lisa,’ Ashling said anxiously. ‘It’s two-thirty and the invite is for three. Should we go?’

Lisa laughed in sardonic surprise. ‘Rule number one – never be on time. Everyone knows that! You’re too important.’

‘Am I?’

‘Pretend.’ Lisa returned to her pile of press releases. But after a while she found herself looking up and saw that Ashling’s avid eyes were fastened on her.

‘For crying out loud!’ Lisa exclaimed, bitterly regretting ever inviting Ashling.

‘Sorry. I’m just afraid everything will be gone.’

‘What everything?’

‘The canapés, the goody bags.’

‘I’m not leaving until three, and don’t ask me again.’

At three-fifteen, Lisa reached under her desk for her Miu Miu tote, and said to a quivering Ashling, ‘Come on, then!’

The taxi journey through the traffic-thronged streets took so long that even Lisa began to worry that all the canapés and goody bags would be gone.

‘What now?’ she demanded irritably, as a policeman thrust his meaty paw at them, indicating that they should stop.

‘Ducks,’ the driver said shortly.

As Lisa wondered if ‘ducks’ was a Dublin swearword along the lines of ‘feck’, Ashling exclaimed, ‘Oh, look, ducks!’

You what! Lisa wondered, then before her startled eyes a mother duck strutted across the road, trailing six ducklings in a line behind her. Two policemen were holding up both directions of traffic to guarantee a safe passage to the duck family. She could hardly believe it!

‘Happens every year.’ Ashling’s eyes were alight. ‘The ducks hatch on the canal, then when they’re big enough, they come down to the lake on Stephen’s Green.’

‘Hundreds of them. Shags up the traffic entirely. Annoy the shite outta you,’ the taxi-driver said fondly.

This fucking city… Lisa sighed.

As Lisa and Ashling alighted outside the Fitzwilliam hotel, the day was chilly and blustery, the mini-heatwave of the previous week but a distant memory.

‘One leg-wax doesn’t make a summer,’ Ashling thought sadly, back to wearing trousers again after a long summer skirt had enjoyed a too-brief airing the day before. Then she forgot the weather and ecstatically elbowed Lisa. ‘Look! It’s your woman, what’s-her-name? Tara Palmtree Yokiemedoodle.’

And indeed it was Tara Palmtree Yokiemedoodle, parading up and down on the pavement outside the hotel, surrounded by a throng of frantically clicking photographers.

‘Givvus a bit of leg there, good girl, Tara,’ they urged.

Ashling headed for the road, to walk around the ring of photographers, but Lisa marched determinedly into the thick of them.

‘Oi, who’s she?’ Ashling heard.

Then Lisa gushed, ‘Taaaaraaaaa, darling, long time no see,’ wrestled Tara into a reluctant air-snog, then swivelled them both to face the cameras. The photographers froze from their incessant clicking, then took in the golden, caramel-haired woman, cheek-to-cheek with Tara, and commenced their clicking with renewed fervour.